Republican Karl Rove says Trump was “put down by a woman he called dumb as a rock” during the “train wreck” debate
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Karl Rove, Republican political adviser and deputy chief of staff in the George W. Bush administration, minced his words in an opinion article and said that the debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris was a “disaster” for him.
He called Trump’s performance at the debate “disastrous” and even went so far as to say he was “crushed by a woman he had previously dismissed as ‘dumb as a rock.'”
Writing in The Wall Street JournalRove says the former president’s performance was “far worse than Team Trump could have imagined” and Trump was “visibly unsettled” as Harris “fired missile after missile at him.”
Rove notes that according to an analysis by The New York TimesHarris spent 46 percent of her time attacking, while Trump’s attacks accounted for only 29 percent of his time.
“Debates are not won by defense,” he wrote.
Rove goes deeper, writing that Trump was overwhelmed by his emotions, even though he must have known that Harris would try to unsettle him.
“He took the bait almost every time she hooked him, wearing a pained smile,” Rove said. “Instead of dismissing her attacks and making his strongest counterarguments against them, Mr. Trump became angry.”
Things only got worse as their attacks continued, Rove says, noting: “He gripped the podium more and more frequently and more tightly. He grimaced and shook his head, and sometimes responded with wild and imaginative rhetoric.”
Trump failed to deliver the short, clever answers and counterattacks that would have been effective, the political adviser writes. And the former president failed in his most important task of linking Harris to President Joe Biden’s failed policies.
Rove expresses his opinion on Trump’s behavior: “It is important how the candidates behave during the debate. In this case, it was not a competition. Ms. Harris seemed calm, confident, strong and focused on the future. Mr. Trump seemed heated, angry and fixated on the past, especially his own.”
He also says of Harris: “She mastered the split screen, exuding confidence and wordlessly undercutting him by smiling and shaking her head at the same time as he spoke.”
That impression, he writes, will help many undecided and swing voters make their decision. Others wanted to learn something new and reassuring about the candidates, and Harris, he says, offered them plenty of that.
In conclusion, Rove writes that while the debate will have an impact on the election, it will probably not be as strong as the Harris team hopes or as the Trump team fears.
“But there’s no sugarcoating this pig,” Rove said. “Mr. Trump was trashed by a woman he had previously dismissed as ‘dumb as a rock.’ That begs the question: What does that make him?”
In an unusual move that was widely interpreted as an admission that the debate had not gone well, Trump appeared in the spin room, normally reserved for campaign staff and surrogates, after the debate and spoke to the media.
He claimed it was his “best debate ever.”
